She didn’t notice me walk through the door. I skipped a formal greeting and went straight for trying to drown her in the tub.
I used my shoulder to hit her from behind square in the middle of her back, and she fell face-first into the water. I tumbled in after, reaching for her neck so I could hold her head under, but she thrashed and flailed, slipping out of my grasp. I grabbed a length of sodden linen and slapped it hard across her torso, knocking her over. She fell back, cursing and sputtering. I saw her eyes go wide behind the curtain of her dark, dripping hair as she realized who it was that had attacked her.
“You deranged bitch!” she screamed at me. “What in Hades are you trying to prove?”
“That if you want to get rid of me so badly,” I shouted, “you’ll have to do it yourself!”
She retched out laundry water and clambered to her feet. “What are you talking about, you lunatic?”
“I know now why you convinced me to go to that house last night,” I said. “Did you also nail that poor bird to my door just so we could have something to bond over?”
“I told you I had nothing to do with that.”
“I know all about Pontius Aquila—”
“You don’t know anything,” she sneered. “Aquila is deluded if he thinks you worthy of his collection. You’re nothing but a naive little barbarian who got lucky in a fight. You don’t deserve to call yourself a gladiatrix. You never will.”
“Why do you hate me so much?”
“You don’t belong with us!” she screeched.
Her eyes were red and streaming, and I didn’t know whether it was from tears or the acrid wash water, but the raw agony in her voice brought me up short. I stepped back, sloshing through drifts of clinging laundry, to steady myself on the edge of the tub. My burst of rage was spent, and all that was left was the ghost of mandrake wine and a deep weariness.
“She’s not your sister,” she said, her voice ragged. “Not anymore. She’s mine!”
I grew still. “What are you talking about?”
“Achillea.” She scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “Before you came, I was her favorite. I’ve always been her favorite, because I’ve always been the best. Now it doesn’t matter how well I fight. Now she barely even looks at me when I’m in the arena. Because of you. Victrix. The Fury Killer. Everyone thinks you’re so perfect. At least Pontius Aquila respects my skills.”
“Really. Is that why he’s using you to get to me?” I asked.
She glared at me, murder in her eyes.
I shook my head. “How did you even know I was Achillea’s sister? Did Aquila tell you? Is he your real master, Nyx?”
“Shut up,” she snarled. “My loyalty lies with the Ludus Achillea and it always has. More than yours.”
“How did you know?”
“I heard the Lanista talking to Thalestris about it.” She pushed the dark hair back from her face and wrung the wash water from it. “About you. And how desperate she was to protect her poor baby sister from all the big, bad monsters in Rome.”
“Like the monsters I saw at Domus Corvinus last night?” I said. “Do you know what they do down there in the catacombs? Do you know what happened to the gladiator Ajax?”
“I know he lost.” Her expression was cold and pitiless.
“They butchered him—”
“I don’t care!” she shouted, covering her ears. I think she knew, or at least suspected, Aquila’s true nature—she just didn’t want to admit it. “One day it will be me fighting in those houses on the hill, living in luxury and treated like a goddess. Just as well as that ungrateful fool Mandobracius.”
I was sickened by Nyx’s idea of what we were and sick at heart to think that the night before I’d clamored for a man’s death for the sake of entertainment. That wasn’t what being a gladiator—or a gladiatrix—was supposed to be about. No matter what the mob thought, we were better than that.
I was better than that.
All of the righteous fury drained from me as I stood and climbed out of the laundry tub. I no longer wanted to make Nyx suffer. I figured she was suffering enough without my help, even if she didn’t know it. I left her there with her rage and hatred and her deluded lust for glory.
“I’m not your enemy, Nyx,” I said over my shoulder. “I won’t be.”
“From the sound of it, you have more enemies than you can handle, gladiolus,” she called after me. “I don’t even think I have to fight you anymore. I can just sit back and watch as others tear you to pieces.”
? ? ?
I went back to tell Elka everything that had happened, but Sorcha flung open the door to our room before I could get a word out. I braced myself for the beating she would give me, but then she was across the room crushing me to her chest in a fierce hug.
“Thank the Morrigan,” she whispered into my hair. “I thought they’d taken you from me.”
After a moment, Heron entered, carrying his leather satchel full of medical supplies.